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Yesterday the NDP denounced Stephen Harper for “needlessly militarizing the North instead of focusing on its environment and people.” NDP Northern Development critic Dennis Bevington proposed instead a national navel-gaze to raise our Arctic sovereignty consciousness.
"We need to bring out that passion for the North in Parliament. I absolutely think there's a passion for the North among Canadians. We truly identify ourselves as a northern people."
Somehow, I don’t think that will prove sufficient to keep our northern territories when push comes to shove. Russian polar explorer Artur Chilingarov has announced that his country will be ready by 2009 to prove its ownership of the North Pole, which Canada now claims.
From today’s RFE/RL Newsline Russia, third item down:
POLAR HERO SAYS RUSSIA WILL 'DEMAND' ARCTIC IN 2009The head of the recent Russian Arctic-2007 expedition to the North Pole, Artur Chilingarov, who is a polar explorer, Hero of the Soviet Union, and deputy speaker of the State Duma, said on September 25 that Russia will file the necessary papers with the UN to have the Lomonosov and Mendeleyev ridges in the Arctic verified as being extensions of the Russian continental shelf and hence Russian territory.
The area claimed by Russia encompasses territory extending as far south as Ellesmere Island and is believed to contain 10 billion tons of hydrocarbon reserves.
But who cares about that when you’ve got “passion”?
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